Grand Avenue in Saint Paul. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was gentrified well over forty years ago – before the term really existed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It’s been one of Saint Paul’s most durable commercial corridors since as long as I’ve lived here, and then some. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And it’s been having trouble lately. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Well, parts of it have. We’re told that some <\/em>parts are doing quite well, all in all. Which, lets be honest, doesn’t surprise me; the parts of Grand that work, work well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But it’s on the verge of becoming a “Berg’s Law” – whenever there’s a social or economic problem, look for a Public Employee Union. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Bingo<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe problem isn\u2019t the avenue, it\u2019s that group,\u201d [Golden Fig Fine Foods’s Laurie] Crowell said, referring to the out-of-state pension fund that owns some of the corridor\u2019s largest retail spaces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio, known as STRS Ohio and based out of Columbus, has invested some of its teacher pension funds in real estate, including\u00a0four buildings along Grand Avenue<\/a>\u00a0that it has owned since 2006…Salut, Pottery Barn, Lululemon, J. Crew, J.W. Hulme and Anthropologie, which\u00a0closed late 2022<\/a>, were all in buildings owned by STRS Ohio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When looking for a storefront for Evergreen Collective, Hall said she was interested in the building where J.W. Hulme used to be, but said the rent would have been twice as high as her current location.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The vacancies along Grand Avenue are \u201cnot a sign that the avenue isn\u2019t working,\u201d Crowell said. \u201cIt is a sign that [STRS Ohio] isn\u2019t working with the avenue.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Of course, it’s not just <\/em>businesses in STRS-owned buildings that are having trouble. And STRS pleads innocence, or at least competence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Like most stories re Twin Cities business, there are two sides to the story. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It’s just that there really didn’t used to be a downside on Grand. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Grand Avenue in Saint Paul. It was gentrified well over forty years ago – before the term really existed. It’s been one of Saint Paul’s most durable commercial corridors since as long as I’ve lived here, and then some. And it’s been having trouble lately. Well, parts of it have. We’re told that some parts […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy-and-the-market","category-st-paul"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=86884"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86884\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86885,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86884\/revisions\/86885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=86884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=86884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=86884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n